


seeing death at every turn

by Pomfry



Series: I have the universe branded on my heart (and the stars beneath my ribs) [3]
Category: Superman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, He is a fucking person with his soul touched by Death, Jon is not only a super, Kinda character death????, LITERALLY, Living in someone else's shoes, So of course I had to write this, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 20:56:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12044121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomfry/pseuds/Pomfry
Summary: Jon looks at the world around him and sees death with every step and color with every blink, and it's something that's unique to him.His soul has always been more attached, more shackled to his body than most, and it shows. Jon has always been more grounded, more honest and blunt, more able to see lies and forgive and-Jon's feet have always been on the ground. Never leaving, never floating, the ground is a constant.The sky? Oh, Jon's head has always been in the sky. Never focused, never truly calm or angry, the sky is something amazing.(You don't walk away from having Death meddle with your soul without consequences. Jon didn't ask for this, and yet he has it.)





	seeing death at every turn

**Author's Note:**

> So... Here's what happened to Jon!
> 
> I really, _really_ like it.
> 
> None of these people exist, and none of these events happened, I'm pretty sure.
> 
> Artistic liberty, peoplesss.
> 
> (The German means _you insolent girl!_ and I have my friend Virus to thank for that since they speak German!)

Jon's always been…different, and not in the way that one would think.

It's not because he's from another Earth, or because his dad is Superman. No, it's something else, something that sets Jon apart even more than he already is.

It's the fact that he can see the way a person can die. It's the fact that he can see the bonds that connect people.

It's the fact that Jon had anxiety attacks when he was little, the fact that he sees the corpses lining the street. It's the fact that his parents’ deaths never _fucking_ stays the same unlike everyone else.

It always. Changes.

And Jon-

When Jon was five, he saw his Dad's dead body impaled on a spike of green stone in the fields, mouth open and screaming, eyes wide and terrified, and Jon had taken one look and started to sob.

He didn't stop until he passed out from hyperventilating.

It's the way that when he closes his eyes, a flash of a someone's death flashes across his vision. It's the fact that he has insomnia, because when he sleeps, he gets nightmares of past battles, of famous and insignificant wars and fights, and always, _always,_ Jon is someone holding a weapon.

Always, always, he takes someone's life in a daze of exhaustion and fear and determination, _of you will not hurt my country, you will not hurt my loved ones,_ **_I won't let you-_ **

Jon wakes up paralyzed with shouts of pain trapped behind his lips.

Jon's just… Different.

And he knows it's not a good thing.

 

\--

 

_He's dragging her best friend by the hair, a strict soldier in a stupid military costume, and Mary's heart stops._

_“No,” she whispers, and she's only thirteen, only just starting her life, but that is her_ **_best friend,_ ** _so she runs forward the best she can in idiotic fancy shoes, shoving past the mob the best she can._

_“Lily!”_

_Lily looks up, still struggling and face scrunched with pain, and anger roars in Mary's chest at the sight of it, because Lily has always been so small and so fragile that Mary has protected her since they met at age two._

_She slams into a man who only watches, horror written on his face, and Mary_ **_does not have time for this-_ **

_He's holding a knife. A knife meant for bread, but Mary will take what she has, so she yanks it out of his hand and stabs the soldier in the leg._

_“Let her go,” Mary shrieks, and Lily starts to sob as the man kicks Mary aside with a snarl of German._

_“Unverschämter machën,” the soldier screams, but Mary doesn't know German, never has, so she just-_

_Mary only gets back up again, long, **elegant** nails clawing at his skin and bringing red to the surface, and _ **_Lily is still crying._ **

**_Unacceptable,_ ** _Mary thinks with blood on her pretty yellow dress and in her hair, and draws the gun at the soldier’s side._

_She aims it at his head the best she can, and pulls the trigger within the span of a single second._

_His head explodes._

_Blood is everywhere, but Mary only has eyes for Lily, and in this haze of red, she can't think of anything else._

_So she grabs Lily and_ **_runs._ **

_They're chased, of course, and caught, but Mary never lets go of Lily's hand, and Lily never lets go of hers, and they die together._

**_Mary's only thirteen,_ ** _the public cries in outrage as they're sent to camps, never mind the little girl at her side with brown hair to Mary's blonde._

_“You shouldn't have done that,” Lily says later, thin and pale hand still clutching her’s as the moon looms above._

_Mary looks so her with sad eyes, long hair long since shaved, puts her forehead on Lily's, and, thinks,_ **_yes, I did-_ **

Jon shoots up with a gasp, hand reaching for Lily's, panicking when it isn't there, and his name isn't _Jon,_ it's Mary, she's female and going to die soon, and _where is Lily-_

No, no, he's Jon. He's seven, and male, and it's 2014.

Jon chokes on his tears, Lily whispering in his ear as he pulls his legs to his chest.

“Lily,” he whispers in despair, and he can feel her arms wrapping around his shoulders the way she already did to Mary, pressing a kiss to the side of his head, and, oh, that's his mom.

Jon doesn't get any more sleep that night.

 

_\--_

 

_He's been an orphan as long as he can remember, just a child thrown out to the mercy of the slavers, and his brown skin is something he hates._

_He escaped when he was thirteen and now-_

_Now he's fighting in a war when he only wanted to be free._

_The canon beside him booms, and John can only watch as it hits the Confederate ground, as people go flying with a shout._

_A shiver runs up his spine at the blood, but this is_ **_war,_ ** _and he's seen far too much blood for it to truly bother him at the moment._

_“John, load another canon,” a fellow soldier roars, and John fumbles with his hands as they shake._

**_Boom._ **

_John's ears are ringing and he knows he's gasping for air through all the smoke, but he gets the cannonball into the goddamn canon and strikes a match with a trembling hand as he waits for that scream of his commanding officer._

**_“Fire,”_ ** _yells the white man on his horse, and John lights the rope._

**_Boom._ **

_John covers his ears a moment too late, and he falls to the ground, his shriek of pain concealed by the way others scream._

_Lord, he hates this, hates the fighting, hates the way that people look at him, hates the way that he doesn't get enough pay._

_“Almighty God above, just let me live another day,” John mutters, full of fear and dread, and he loads his gun as he huddles behind a tree._

_“Fire!”_

_The pull of his trigger-and he's always been a crack shot, always been able to hit whatever he wants-and a bullet lands into a kid's face._

_He falls, eyes wide and unseeing, and John nearly drops his gun._

_Lord, how he hates war._

_A bullet almost rips through his ear, and John drops to the ground as a man goes forward with his unit, a snarl of rage on his lips as tears escape, and John realizes that the kid he just killed was most likely this man's_ **_family._ **

_John swallows around the lump in his throat and readies his bayonet._

_He won't die today. He has family, too; a little girl who hides behind his legs because she escaped as well, but her mother got caught, and John took her in the moment he found her; a woman who smiles at him and kisses his forehead and calls him brother; a old man, blind and stooped from long hours in the sun and fields, who grins at him with eyes that can't see and tells him stories and tales about the most fantastic things._

_John has family, too, and he has a letter from his little girl back in his bag waiting for a reply, and he won't let a man from the South take him away from his family and enslave them again._

_John looks the man right in his eyes, and he still hates war, but he drives his bayonet into the man's chest because he needs too, because his sister is at home with his daughter, listening to stories about great things, and he wants to protect his whole world._

_John falls apart later, dripping with blood and bandages over his wounds, falls apart because he killed so many today, killed so many families, and his commanding officer claps him on the shoulder, orders a few days off, and hands him a piece of paper and a pencil, because John is barely sixteen, and everyone knows it._

_He's_ **_barely sixteen,_ ** _he shouldn't be fighting a war for basic freedom-_

Jon opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling, tears prickling his eyes as he sits up and breathes.

 _At least this time, I have a name that's mine,_ Jon thinks sadly, and lurches to his feet to throw up, because he ended that memory shattering into millions of pieces, and Jon does all the time, now.

He runs a hand through his hair, and knows he won't be getting anymore sleep tonight.

He closes his eyes and climbs out into the tree by his room, the full moon in the sky glowing down with borrowed light, and Jon remembers ambushing innocent people at night with knives and arrows, remembers following orders no matter the disgust in his stomach, because he couldn't refuse.

Jon leans his head back until he's staring at the night sky, and he recalls the way the sky looked, once, with all it's stars burning happily and freely, and smiles faintly.

“How things change,” he says weakly, softly, and tries not to bring up memories of stabbing his brother in the stomach under a painting of night.

He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on his knees, and stares up at the modern sky, and, almost, almost forgets what it's like to have a rifle kick back in his hands.

 

\--

 

Romantic love is red.

It's a fact accepted by everyone, but, to Jon, it's _wrong._

Romantic love is a fresh blue, the color of summer sky above his house, the wind that brushes through his mom's hair on a day when Dad flies through the air.

Bonds mean strings.

_Wrong._

Bonds mean splashes of color where you walk, a splatter on your skin that has a name on it. Bonds mean smiles and laughs that give life color, that stay on your lips after you smile.

Family means the rainbow.

_Wrong._

Family means a bright orange, the color of fire. Family means that your skin is covered in flame, and you're consumed, but you never burn. Family means that sometimes the embers die down and disappear, family means that some go quickly, a flash of flame that's there one minute and gone the next, family means that some are always there, always burning but never dying.

Jon looks at the world around him and sees death with every step and color with every blink, and it's something that's unique to him.

His soul has always been more attached, more shackled to his body than most, and it shows. Jon has always been more grounded, more honest and blunt, more able to see lies and forgive and-

Jon's feet have always been on the ground. Never leaving, never floating, the ground is a constant.

The sky? Oh, Jon's head has always been in the sky. Never focused, never truly calm or angry, the sky is something amazing.

Jon's sure that there's more to the world than one thinks, even with superheroes running around, sure that religion is _fake,_ sure that the only reason humans can see color is that the planet below them is alive and that it loves and bonds with everyone who walks across it's surface.

Jon's always been strange. Always been different, and he knows that people who say that's fine don't know him.

He's living proof that being different isn't fine, but… He lives with it.

Jon's alive, and he's different, and he's learned to be okay with that.

Doesn't mean he has to like it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always loved and brighten up my day and are saved in my Gmail.
> 
> Also! Here's my [Tumblr.](http://nikescaret.tumblr.com) Come visit and chat with me if you want!


End file.
